bassline

Skyline Grey

I took this on the way back into center city from an afternoon of looking at art at the Philadelphia Museum of Art with painter friend, Douglas Witmer. It's been cloudy and raining off and on (more "on" than "off") for the past three days or more. Needless to say, I'm over it and it's just the beginning of the real fall weather. I'll take a cold day with sunlight than several with just clouds any day.

A small sampling of what I saw yesterday while walking to work:


Snow Fairy
The coolest snow fairy you never made. Seen on Carpenter Street near 8th Street.


Snow fairy closeup. Note the colorful mixed media approach to defining the features.


Winter Path
We finally got a real snowfall for the first time this winter.


Crossing Washington
9th and Washington Avenue, nexus of the Italian Market-Philadelphia

(all photos ©tim mcfarlane)

Wetlands at the Schuylkill Center for Environmental Education(SCEE)

This past weekend turned out to be a really good one. Particularly Saturday, which began on a very gray and rainy note. I'd made plans for E and I to go up to the Schuylkill Center for Environmental Education located on the northern edge of the Roxborough neighborhood here in Philadelphia. I woke up in a bad mood and seeing the rain and clouds only made things worse since I'd planned for us to spend some quality time outdoors.

I burrowed under the covers in an attempt to get another hour of sleep. Didn't quite sleep, but the weather had improved to the point where I wanted to go out anyway. My work schedule is such that I work every other Saturday, and on the ones I have off, I like to really take advantage of good weather by being outdoors as much as possible. I hadn't had the chance all summer to get out to the wooded areas around Philly and Saturday's temperatures were good for it. The only problem was that we could have worn shorts instead of jeans. It's that time of year where the mornings and evenings are cool, sandwiching a really warm afternoon. We had a good time, nonetheless...



( 6 more )

Plaza

Plaza area of Society Hill Towers, a set of three condominium buildings in the Society Hill section of Philadelphia built by I.M. Pei in 1963.

( two more )

Comcast Center

Soon to be the tallest building in Philadelphia...
( +3 )

While I'm not impressed with Comcast being a monopoly in the region and likely, soon the country, but the building looks pretty cool going up.

I've been watching the building rising over the past few months and sometimes, I forget that there are hundreds of workers out there every day risking a lot to get the job done. This morning, I found a story on the Philadelphia Inquirer's site about photographer Barbara L. Johnston's story days spent photographing the worksite and being amongst the steelworkers. There's an accompanying slideshow, as well...

Blue Cluster

Center city Philadelphia, looking west on Market Street.

Phillyscape
Center city Philadelphia looking west from the 12th floor of Wills Eye Hospital


Walnut Street Theatre


Black Tower

The Cleanup
©Tim McFarlane

I was a spectator of the Mummers parade for the first time in many years, mainly due to my girlfriend having never seen them. I, on the other hand, like some Philadelphians, have developed something of a 'been there-done that' attitude about the Mummers over the years. Watching a large portion of it this past Saturday, I actually found myself enjoying seeing the costumes and work they put into them and their routines. Here's some of what I saw:

*click photos for larger size*


the rest of the set

There's a street I walk down on one of my many alternate ways to get home. There's this one house where the occupants go all out during the fall season to have a great-looking display outside of their place. I discovered it last year while walking down one of the many side streets in Philly that are almost unnoticeable. The name is American Street, by the way. I'm sure there are more mundane sounding street names out there, but this one is up there on the least interesting street names list for me.

At least the people who own this house make the street a little brighter and more interesting than the street's name. I took these back in October, I think...

( fall bounty )

Morning Light: Queen Street

On my way to work one day last week, I was struck by the light of the rising sun and how it affected how the streets looked and what they felt like. There was something about that particular time of morning, especially the strong light that seemed to push the shadows to the side. It was that point in the morning when these residential streets were pretty empty, but not very far away, expressways were still clogged...

( Morning Light )

Walked through center city a few days ago en route to the art supply store. My picture-taking finger got itchy and some of the results are ( here )